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How much does 3D Mapping cost ?

We decided that it makes sense to write an article answering the question: “How much video mapping projection show costs?” since sometimes we get a lot of requests to create a video show for clients. Sometimes the cost of videos does not suit the customer’s requirements

For example, a clients wants to get a mapping on buildings of 100 square meters for the budget of 5000 Euros. I thinks such article will be useful, not only for our company, Lime Art Group, but also to other companies but also to other companies that develop video show and also to their clients. So, let’s make it clear.

Every year we analyze the market by requesting different marketing agencies or by our own forces. It is not a secret that any event company making requests about costs from different video mapping companies about event info, about technical characteristics of the building, creative assignment for content development and technical provision can easily estimate average price of such architecture mapping, since it is the main niche, in our opinion, and it makes up 80% of the whole market. We wrote in our previous article “How to order Video Mapping – conditions that are necessary to know” how and where to request for development of our video mapping and we will go through each term and calculate how much it can cost.

Let’s imagine that are a Client (not intermediary), for example, line employee of a hotel, somewhere on the seacoast. You are appointed to organize 3D video mapping show. You start searching, you find international companies in the net or local providers through your own acquaintances and you send the info about the event, how many minutes of show you want to have, idea for the content, height and width of the building and several photos of the architecture. As a result, a good video mapping company is that one which maximum in 2-3 days will send you their proposal in which they will show the price for development of the content, technical provision and additional conditions. It means that such company has got their own technical resources (projectors, media servers) and employees who for 2-3 days can draw not very big sketches (not in a video format, images are enough), that can give you enough information to approve or not to approve the project.

But if a company spends more than 2 or 3 days to prepare such commercial proposal, then there are several options, either this company is extremely cool and overloaded with projects, then you can expect quite high price since it Brand, or in the second scenarios the company has sent your request to another video mapping company which deals with technical rental of the equipment and expects the answers from the second company. In the second version, you have to understand that it can take longer than it was planned. Without any doubts, big projects require a lot of different preparation and calculations, including logistics, insurances – nobody will easily send you 10 Barco Projectors 20 000 Lumen each to another country. In most cases, in very experienced video mapping companies, for a lot of years of competition and international projects participation, a new skill appeared. This skill with help of templates helps to create such proposals very quickly by substituting client’s name and changing the project name.

Requirements can be different, somewhere content matters, somewhere projection quality (more contrast or more projectors), but there is a myth that projectors rent makes up approximately, 60-80% of the total budget. This is not true. There are agencies that charge from USD$ 180,000 to 300,000 to develop 10 minutes content for a building of average height, although the equipment makes up only USD$ 30,000 per day.

When our colleagues made a request to several video mapping companies all over the world we got the following results. If we roughly want to show market realies, 1 minute of mapping show (without technical supervision) will cost from Euro 1500 to 3000. It seems to us that to calculate the price per minute (thousands per minute) is not correct. The biggest prices that came to us were from Belgians: they asked Euro 320 000 per 10 minutes. Britains rank the second , they asked Euro 180 000 per 10 minutes Show. The lowest prices came from Belorussian company: they asked 2000 EUR per 10 minutes. I want to say that the sum included not only the content development but also physical projection mapping setup on the stage/venue. Certainly, transfer and accommodation are paid separately.

Video Projectors Rental

Technical provision costs differently depending on the country and projectors. Taking into accounts that we want to see a picture with high quality, let’s consider projectors with lighting of 20 000 Ansi Lumen. According to recent market research, the cheapest projectors for this level can be rented at USD$300 a day, the most expensive are rented at USD$ 5000 per one working day (including spare lamps). In most cases, it is necessary to take a projector two days before the event. The first day is devoted to setting up all equipment, the second day is for “Show must go on” procedure. Some companies start charging as soon as the projector leaves the warehouse. It means that you have to include transfer, also. It is necessary to understand that there are companies which have millions of profit per day, they own a lot of projectors, additional equipment, media servers and their media technicians. They are ready to give their projectors for renting only for weeks, only. It is possible to buy such equipment at a good price, after such rent. Also, Big rental companies are not going to give their equipment without their employee. The price of such service depends on the country where you stay (accommodation costs) and the company itself but the average price is to from 50 to 200 euro per day, per person + transfer and accommodation.

So, let’s think that for this mapping on the four floor hotel event it is enough to use 2 Video Projectors of 20K Lumens and let’s take the average price of such projectors, approximately, 2000 euro. So, 2000 euro, 2 days and 2 projectors make up 8000 euro. If we fly, approximately, up to 3000 euro for logistics and 2000 euro for a media technician. Totally, 13 000 euro net.

Again a lot of uncertainties since there are different requests as well as animations and techniques are different. For example, there are animation studios that charge $200 per one second of 3D animation. In video mapping there also can be animation of personalitis, Character Animation but let’s take it simple and take as an example of animation of architecture itself including 3D displaces, extrusions, animation of archtectural elements and visual effects on layers. As I wrote earlier, those 100 companies that were requested gave us different charges but if we take middle average price it will be 2000 EUR per minute. Ten minutes will be Euro 20 000. Summing technical supervision and content development will be 20000+13000. Adding there also accommodation, it will be 35000 EUR. This is the cost of of the project the average level of complexity and comprehensiveness. But it seems to me that start-up companies can do it even cheaper since it is more important to them to declare their existence. Doing this they can dump the market without any awareness that in future they will bring up those clients who would not like to pay them more.

But I told you that it is not possible to calculate video mapping like this. This is a service and one provider can charge one price and another provider can charge another price. But it is not only price that matters but also quality, trust, reliability and understanding if something goes wrong your provider, video mapping company, will correct the situation without any losses. There are a lot of pieces of simple animation in Victoria Secret Show. This animation is very simple and can be made by any student of the first course for 100-300 dollars but due to the fact that there are necessary people working and they will never let you down the price is going up very quickly.

For every client we are creating the personal quote and in most cases we try to go into business process since there are some situations when video event as itself is not needed, at all. If the client can invest 320 000 EUR it makes sense to invite local celebrities and organize several events. Or, to do nothing and buy a house somewhere in Greece :). But there is a dilemma of the whole life: if you want to get more, you have to give more, if you want to get quality, you have to pay more for that quality. It is always necessary to investigate the situation – that is what we do in LIME ART GROUP.

We offer the best solutions in the industry for media and shows on request. Now, we are not only dealing with video projection shows. We are transforming to ready made solutions, 3D animations for video mapping, which get new forms and shapes with the help of talented artists and video mapping companies all over the world. In any case, write to us, we can either prepare video mapping show by ourselves, or advise our partners and specialists who can help you to prepare very nice impressive 3d mapping show at a good price and we can guarantee the quality of such production.